In cipher
Petrograd, Smolny
To Zinoviev for Stalin*

The entire situation of the White Guard offensive against Petrograd compels us to assume the presence in our rear, and possibly on the front itself, of organized treachery. Only this can explain the attack with comparatively insignificant forces, the rapid advance forward, as well as the repeated explosions of bridges on the highways leading to Petrograd. It appears that the enemy is fully confident in the absence of any organized military force on our part to offer resistance and, moreover, is counting on assistance from the rear (the fire at the artillery depot in Novo-Sokolniki, the explosions of bridges, today's reports of mutiny at Oredezh). Request that urgent attention be paid to these circumstances and that emergency measures be taken to expose the conspiracies.

Lenin

Written 27 May 1919

First published in 1950

Printed according to the text written in the 4th edition of the Collected Works
of V. I. Lenin, vol. 29
in the handwriting of L. B. Krasin, supplemented
and signed by V. I. Lenin